20 Years of Being in Love With Shah Rukh Khan

24th December 2003, the night before Christmas, when I asked my aunt if we could watch “Kal Ho Naa Ho” the next day, I was prepared to hear a ‘No’. The reason being, we had already watched two films on the big screen that year, “Chalte Chalte” and “Main Prem Ki Deewani Hoon”. But when she agreed, on the condition that I would finish at least one subject’s holiday homework that night, I was elated. 

The next morning, I had a dream that Shah Rukh had arrived in a red-colored sports car to take me to the theater. I woke up exuberant. I had never felt so excited about a movie before, and it was strange because I knew what happens in the film scene by scene. The movie was released a month ago, and my schoolmates had seen it. They discussed what happens after the song ‘Maahi Ve’ in length. When one of them inquired if I am okay with spoilers, I nodded as I did not have any intention to watch it anytime soon. But out of the blue, I felt an urge to watch it. Maybe it was FoMo, maybe the reason was that Sony TV was having an SRK film festival, and I was seeing Shah Rukh everywhere. Nevertheless, it was a sign.

25th December 2003, the day of Christmas, I watched “Kal Ho Naa Ho”. Today, 20 years later, I can recall the exact moments that made me chuckle, that made me sad, that gave me goosebumps, and that made me fall in love with Shah Rukh Khan.

I have seen many films in different languages and genres, but nowhere could I find an entry scene like Aman’s. Against the wind, sailing in a boat, caressing his hair, donned in a beige overcoat, comes Aman. Truth be told, when I watched “Kal Ho Naa Ho” for the first time, I didn’t understand a few scenes, the ‘ghalat ghar’ sequence, even though I did laugh there, and the letter part. But, in my defense, I was a kid.

The whole film after ‘Maahi Ve’ was a tear fest. Everyone in the theater was crying. Sipping water, and crying. And so did I.

On our way back home, I asked my aunt, ‘Shahrukh and Karan Johar are best friends, right?’. She said that it does seem so. I asked next, ‘Then why did he kill him in his film?’. I was a kid but a smart one who knew the difference between reel and real. Years ago, my family had pacified the very anxious little me by showing Renuka Shahaane’s shows after her character’s painful death in “Hum Aapke Hain Koun”. So I knew. I knew what the characters were. I knew what fiction was. Hence, she was perplexed and asked me to go through my question again. I did. And, I failed. No matter how hard I tried, I failed to make any sense of what I was feeling.

On reaching home, I locked myself in the washroom, and for the next 30 minutes, I cried. I cried my eyes out. I cried for Aman. I cried for his family. And mostly I cried for Naina who had lived 20 years in the absence of the man she loved.

Two days later, Sony TV aired “Devdas”. It was my second viewing of the film. The first time when I watched it, I liked it but did not appreciate it the way my aunt wanted me to. I felt no suture. But this time, two days after having watched “Kal Ho Naa Ho”, I cried. I cried every time Devdas cried. And when he dies in the end, I wailed. I began to understand what was happening. I did not cry for the character, I cried because of the actor who played this character.

I cried because it was Shah Rukh Khan.

And this was the moment that brought a new discourse in my life. Life after falling in love with Shah Rukh Khan. After this Christmas of 2003, the only thing that’s constant in my life was my love for Shah Rukh. After this event, everything that happened around Shah Rukh affected me. His films, his awards, his speeches, controversies, his surgeries, they all affected me a great deal.

When I look back, I understand how important it was for me to fall in love with Shah Rukh and create an Inception-like world for me where I weaved fictitious stories. The next decade had some extremely lonely years for me, and if I did not have his films, his songs, it would have been, well, a disaster for me.

In 2015, I met people who were Shah Rukh fans and looked at cinema the way I did, putting an end to the era of loneliness. I met people who had cried exactly where I had cried watching a film. I met people to whom “Mohabbatein” and “RNBDJ” did make sense. I met people who believed that people like Veer and Raj Malhotra do exist. It was comforting.

Shah Rukh and I completed 20 years of being together, and I can’t imagine any other way I would have spent the last 20 years of this life. Aman saved Naina, and Shah Rukh in many ways saved me.